Ross Chastain ‘content’ after Daytona 500 bid ends with big move, last-lap crash

Posted on February 19, 2024February 20, 2024 by Zack Albert

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Ross Chastain was almost loaded in for the start of Monday’s Daytona 500 when he heard some last-minute words of encouragement over the pre-race ruckus. Chastain had wriggled most of the way into the cockpit of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet when Trackhouse Racing founder Justin Marks got his attention.

“What am I going to be drinking in about three hours?” Marks yelled over the hood.

“You know,” Chastain said with a grin and a nod to his new Busch Light sponsorship.

Nearly three hours and 199 of 200 laps later in Monday’s rain-delayed crown jewel, that same hood was pointed into the infield grass at Daytona International Speedway after Chastain’s bold move for a potential race-winning pass. Any celebratory cans of his sponsor’s sudsy product stayed on ice. Chastain was credited with a midpack 21st-place finish — where he started — but his challenge to eventual Daytona 500 champ William Byron was among the strongest on a topsy-turvy day.

RELATED: Daytona 500 results | At-track photos

“I took the gap, and I don’t apologize for that,” Chastain said. “I can go to sleep tonight knowing that I took the white flag, making the move to win the Daytona 500. Four years ago, it was with eight laps to go or something. I’ve got it down to one lap to go. Yeah, too aggressive, though, when you don’t finish.”

Chastain stayed clean and clear of the race’s twists and turns, and he was out front when a massive crash erupted close behind him with 10 laps to go. He was still atop the scoring pylon when the field lined up for the final restart with four laps remaining.

Chastain’s No. 1 stayed door-to-door with the No. 24 Chevy of Byron for the first two laps of the final green-flag stretch, until Byron inched ahead with a massive push from Austin Cindric and others in the low groove. Chastain’s lane regrouped as it barreled to the white flag, and that’s when he saw an opening.

Chastain dipped low on Byron, who held his ground. As he did, he made contact with Cindric’s No. 2 Ford, sending both cars sliding.

Chastain initially took his share of the blame, saying he made too hard a left turn, collecting Cindric. But as the two drivers chatted outside the infield care center to discuss their collision, Cindric seemed to absolve Chastain, pointing the finger at Corey LaJoie’s pressure and push just before the start-finish line. “Corey finished fourth, so congrats,” Cindric said. “I mean, he tried to fit a car where there wasn’t a car, and just continued to push through my left-rear until I wrecked.”

Coming that close to winning the Daytona 500 had the potential to carry a certain sting for Chastain, but the 31-year-old Florida native was mostly encouraged just to have a shot at victory in the “Great American Race.” For himself and Marks, there was instead peace about the outcome.

SHOP: Daytona 500 winner gear

“I mean, I love Ross Chastain and he’s got a lot of fight,” Marks told NASCAR.com. “We had a really fast race car here, and the Busch Light people are super-excited to watch their car lead the race. We have a big history in front of us in this sport, a lot to accomplish. I’m not getting too low right now, I’m just really proud of the effort that he put in, the effort that the team put in. You know, 10 times out of 10, I want a guy that goes for it.”

Said Chastain: “We still had a shot, though, so yeah, I really do feel content. It’s weird to say it, but we did everything right.”

For Chastain and Marks, the post-race toast in Daytona’s Victory Lane will have to wait. Chastain entered his sixth Daytona 500 appearance with a “why not us?” mentality, and the team nearly cashed in on that approach.

“I just gave him a hug and told him I’m proud of him and said that you know, we’re gonna be doing a lot of these Daytona 500s together,” Marks said after the two met in the No. 1 team’s hauler. “We’re going to have a lot of opportunities to win this race. I think everybody at Trackhouse, we do a pretty good job of managing our expectations and knowing that these races always come down to a game of millimeters at the end, and you have to shoot your shot. You have to go for it. I’m glad that he did. He’s in really good spirits. Probably already thinking about Atlanta.”

Posted on February 19, 2024February 20, 2024 by Reid Spencer

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — William Byron gave team owner Rick Hendrick something extra to celebrate in the 40th anniversary year of Hendrick Motorsports.

In a frantic scramble after a restart on Lap 197 of 200 in the Daytona 500, Byron reached the start/finish line and took the white flag moments before NASCAR called the fifth caution of the evening as Ross Chastain slid wildly through the infield grass off the bumper of Austin Cindric’s Ford.

The victory was Hendrick’s ninth in the Daytona 500, tying the company with Petty Enterprises for most in the history of the NASCAR Cup Series most prestigious event. The race was postponed from Sunday to Monday because of heavy rains during the weekend.

“I’m just a kid from racing on computers and winning the Daytona 500,” said the 26-year-old Byron, who picked up the 11th Cup Series victory of his career and his second at Daytona, the first coming in the 2020 summer race at the 2.5-mile superspeedway.

“I can’t believe it. I wish my dad was here. He’s sick, but this is for him, man. We’ve been through so much, and we sat up in the grandstands together and watched the race (when Byron was younger). This is so freaking cool.”

WATCH: Byron shares emotions following Daytona 500 win | Bowman on runner-up finish

Alex Bowman was a close second to his teammate at the moment of caution, giving Hendrick a 1-2 finish and the organization’s first victory in the “Great American Race” since Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s triumph in 2014. It marked the first Hendrick 1-2 in the “Great American Race” since Jimmie Johnson bested Earnhardt to the stripe in 2013.

“At the end of the race we use all available resources,” explained NASCAR Sr. VP of Competition, Elton Sawyer. “Caution comes out, we’ll use video, timestamp. At the time of caution, it was 24 (of Byron) over the 48 (of Bowman). Obviously, we would have loved to have left it green and let it finish naturally but once the 2 car (of Cindric) had spun and started back up the race track and was going to be in the traffic and oncoming traffic there, there was no choice but to throw the caution at that time.”

NASCAR released the image below to illustrate the timing of the caution.

Hendrick could barely contain his elation in Victory Lane.

“I’m telling you, you couldn’t write the script any better,” he said. “When we thought about coming down here the first time, we didn’t think we should be here, felt so out of place.

“We win this on our 40th to the day, it’s just… and tied a record now, so that’s awesome.”

Before the final restart, Chastain was racing at the front of the field on Lap 192 when a bump from Alex Bowman got Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron out of shape and knocked Byron into the right rear of Brad Keselowski’s Ford.

Keselowski turned up the track into the Ford of Joey Logano, who had led a race-high 45 laps to that point. Reigning series champion Ryan Blaney’s Ford was among the 23 cars involved in the accident that left a string of mangled vehicles strewn along the backstretch.

The wreck knocked Blaney, Keselowski and Logano out of the race, along with Tyler Reddick, defending race winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Daniel Suárez and Todd Gilliland. NASCAR red-flagged the race for 15 minutes 27 seconds for track cleanup.

“Speedway racing again,” Logano said ruefully. “It’s a lot of fun until this happens. It was pretty interesting, with a lot of pushing and shoving there at the end. Our car was able to take it. Our Mustang was so fast. It could lead a line really well. I kind of thought I had the cars I wanted around me. I had at least one I wanted around me but just couldn’t make it work.”

“Obviously, hate what happened on that backstretch,” Byron said of the accident. “I just got pushed and got sideways. But so proud of this team, whole Axalta team, 40th anniversary to the day, on Monday.

“Just extremely blessed and thankful for all the opportunities, and we just want to keep it going. We have a lot to prove this year, and this is a good start, obviously.”

How much Byron has yet to prove is debatable. He won a series-best six races last year, qualified for the Championship 4 and finished third in the final standings.

RACE REWIND: Wild finish brings new Daytona 500 victor

The race was not quite five laps old when an eight-car accident off Turn 4 started the inevitable attrition. Contact from Keselowski’s Ford in a tightly bunched line of the outside knocked John Hunter Nemechek’s Toyota into the center lane and into the side of Harrison Burton’s Ford.

Burton slid toward the infield, collecting the Chevrolet of Sunoco rookie Carson Hocevar. Burton’s No. 21 Mustang shot up the track and slammed into the Ford of Kaz Grala and the Chevrolet of Austin Dillon. Behind Dillon, Hocevar careened into the path of seven-time series champion Jimmie Johnson, who couldn’t avoid the collision.

The wreck eliminated the cars of Burton, Hocevar and Grala. Dillon took his No. 3 Chevy to the garage for extensive repairs, and Johnson lost two laps on pit road as his Legacy Motor Club crew worked frantically to repair his Camry.

“I don’t remember exactly who it was on my outside,” Burton said after a trip to the infield care center. “It just looked like they either got a bad push or got loose and just hit me in the right side and sent me across.

“The grass was so wet that once I got in the grass, I thought I’d be OK, but the car just kept going and going… so really sad that our day is over as quick as it was. We had a really fast Ford. It’s just a bummer. There’s nothing we can do but just move on and try to win next week.”

It took 187 more laps of racing before the colossal wreck that dwarfed the earlier incident thinned the field and set up the fight to the finish among the cars that survived.

In a race that featured 41 lead changes among 20 drivers, Christopher Bell ran third, followed by Corey LaJoie, Bubba Wallace and AJ Allmendinger. Chastain, who didn’t have quite enough room when he dived to the inside of Cindric on the penultimate lap, finished 21st, one spot ahead of Cindric.

Seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who was initially caught in the first yellow of the day on Lap 6, finished 28th. Reddick, the 2024 Bluegreen Vacations Duel 1 winner, finished 29th.

SHOP: Daytona 500 winner gear

Defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Blaney finished 30th after being involved in the 23-car pileup.

The Cup Series will head to Atlanta Motor Speedway next for the Ambetter Health 400 on Feb. 25 (3 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

NOTE: Post-race inspection in the Cup Series garage at Daytona concluded without issue, confirming Byron as the race winner. Corey LaJoie’s No. 7 Chevrolet and Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota will be sent back to the R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further inspection.

Contributing: Staff Reports

Posted on February 19, 2024February 20, 2024 by Staff Report

With nine laps to go in the 66th running of the Daytona 500, a massive wreck occurred at the front of the pack that involved a majority of the 30 lead-lap cars vying for the Harley J. Earl Trophy.

The incident began when Alex Bowman gave a stiff shove to his Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron. The push caused the No. 24 Chevrolet of Byron to get loose and spin into the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford of Brad Keselowski.

Keselowski’s car spun to the top of the track, crashing into fellow Ford teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

Despite being a perennial contender to win the Daytona 500, Monday marked the fourth time in five years Keselowski DNF’d in the season-opening contest.

“Somebody just got me in the back. It’s just kind of part of racing at this deal,” Keselowski said. “It’s a bummer because we had a really good car, we were in position to make the pass for the lead with just a few laps to go and now I’m talking to you.”

Twenty-three cars were involved in the wreck, including 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson, two-time Cup Series champ Joey Logano, 2017 champ Martin Truex Jr. and three-time Daytona 500 victor Denny Hamlin.

Tyler Reddick was also among those caught up in the wreck. He had positive momentum entering the race after winning the first of the Bluegreen Vacations Duels last Thursday, but Monday’s result marked the sixth time in 10 Daytona Cup starts the 28-year-old failed to finish.

“I mean, every year I’ve made it this far, I’ve been in that wreck. So yeah, it’s just a part of it. I’ve experienced it many times now, so it’s unfortunate,” Reddick said. “I don’t even know where I finished, but I’d say we had probably the best all-around Daytona 500 we’ve had yet. Still just trying to finish one of these things.”

SHOP: Daytona 500 winner gear

As the laps wound down, Daniel Suárez worked his way to the front of the field and led a pair of laps. It looked like he would get through unscathed in the incident, but he wound up getting clipped in the rear by Todd Gilliland and spun around.

“I mean, it was a very strong day, I thought. Strong car, strong strategy, strong calls — everything was playing the way it was supposed to,” Suárez said. “It just wasn’t meant to be at the very end. I hear that we got hooked in the left-rear by a foot or two.”

Blaney, the defending series champion, led 12 laps, which included making a pass on his Penske teammate Austin Cindric for the Stage 2 victory. Over the years, Blaney has been up front late in the Daytona 500, but he has yet to have luck land on his side in avoiding melees.

“I mean, I don’t put my mind like expecting it to happen. I try to figure out how to move our lane,” Blaney said. “That’s all you’re thinking about in the moment is moving your lane forward and helping out as much as you can, when you can. It looks like Brad kind of made a move as the 48 and 24 (Bowman and Byron) were kind of trying to figure their deal out, and Brad got tagged in the right-rear. Like I said, I don’t expect it. You’re trying to push as hard, but it’s normally something that happens and you just hope you get away scot-free, and unfortunately tonight, we didn’t.”

Chase Elliott, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe were also among those involved in the Lap 191 incident but continued and finished the race. Bell (third) and Briscoe (10th) collected top-10 results while Elliott finished 14th.

Posted on February 19, 2024February 19, 2024 by Staff Report

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – NASCAR officials have moved Monday’s rescheduled Xfinity Series race until after the season-opening Daytona 500 because of rain.

The Xfinity Series’ United Rentals 300, which was pushed to 11 a.m. ET Monday after its Saturday afternoon slot was also washed away, is now scheduled to start roughly one hour after the Cup Series event, approximately a 9 p.m. ET start time at Daytona International Speedway.

The 300-mile Xfinity event will be televised on FS1 with radio coverage on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Rookie Jesse Love will lead the field to the green flag from the pole position.

MORE: At-track photos: Daytona

The Daytona 500 remains on schedule for a 4 p.m. ET start (FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) after torrential rain pushed it back one day.

Posted on February 18, 2024February 19, 2024 by Zack Albert

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Bubba Wallace was upbeat with a certain preseason optimism during his media rotations earlier this Speedweeks at Daytona, saying his outlook for the season was “really good, the best I’ve felt mentally.”

Asked if the positive mental space would influence his performance — and vice versa — Wallace smiled and said, “fingers crossed, dog.” He then crossed his fingers, his arms and legs in his director’s chair for good measure.

Wallace enters the 2024 NASCAR season fresh off his best finish in the Cup Series standings and ready for his seventh start in the Daytona 500 (Mon., 4 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). He’s twice been the runner-up (2018, 2022) and led a race-high 21 laps in Thursday’s second Duel qualifying race.

For Wallace, getting into a more rosy mindset has meant cherishing some recent milestones. It’s also meant flashing back to some of his earliest successes at the national-series level during his start in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

“Turning 30, celebrating my one-year wedding anniversary, celebrating life, just having fun with life, letting the little stuff go, focus on the big stuff,” Wallace said. “I go back and find myself watching 2014 truck races, back when you really couldn’t tell that kid nothing. He’d just jump in a truck and go rip. Didn’t have any self-doubt in the world. So, trying to bring that back, so I feel good.”

Wallace admits that revisiting that youthful enthusiasm while competing at NASCAR’s highest level isn’t done easily.

“Hell, no,” Wallace said. “You jump into a Cup car, and you’re quickly reminded how hard this is.”

Wallace was buoyed last season by a strong conclusion to the 2022 campaign when he switched teams within the 23XI Racing organization, jumping from the No. 23 to close out the year in the No. 45 Toyota, formerly driven by Kurt Busch. That 10-race stint produced his second Cup Series win, providing a springboard into 2023.

Wallace reached the Cup Series Playoffs for the first time, advancing to the Round of 12 and placing a career-high 10th in points. The sticking point, however, was ending the year without a victory, something he says he pressed for during the course of the season.

SHOP: Gear up for the Daytona 500

“I think going into last year, I was like, man, we finished that playoff run with the 45 really, really strong, like ‘it’s going to happen again,’ and I was forcing it too much,” Wallace said. “It’s a fine line. You can’t just sit back and let it come to you because that’s not how the sport works. You have to go out and earn it, but I think just having a different mindset, like I talked about earlier – just being aggressive, being confident. Self-confidence is what’s going to yield the results for us.”

Posted on February 18, 2024February 19, 2024 by Zach Sturniolo

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Hendrick Motorsports hasn’t won the Daytona 500 since 2014.

“Don’t remind me,” said Jeff Gordon, vice chairman of HMS and a three-time winner of the “Great American Race.”

Half of the team’s 2024 NASCAR Cup Series roster has won championships, thanks to Chase Elliott in 2020 and Kyle Larson in 2021. But none of the four, including teammates William Byron and Alex Bowman, have visited Daytona 500 Victory Lane.

“There’s no other win like it. There just isn’t,” Gordon said Wednesday as the organization celebrated its 40th-anniversary kickoff. “And I want one of these four guys to experience that. I want all four of them to experience it over the future because it is so special and you realize it once you win it. But right now, they’re realizing how hard it is to win.”

Larson has won some of NASCAR’s biggest races — the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, the Bristol Night Race and the Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix Raceway, to name a few. But the Daytona 500 remains a box unchecked after 10 attempts.

What makes it so difficult to win, in his estimation, starts with putting your car in the right place as the laps dwindle away in the 500-mile affair.

“It starts from literally like early in the race, I feel like,” Larson told NASCAR.com. “So I think just knowing how to position yourself (and) having a team around you to position yourself for that final stint. And then yeah, I think you see often that, I feel like with a lot of the guys who consistently run up front, everybody else in the field realizes that they’ve had success and they trust them to follow them. So you really need help from behind as well.”

William Byron scored his first career Cup victory on the high banks of Daytona in the summer of 2020 but has struggled historically more in the Daytona 500. In six “Great American Race” starts, Byron has never finished better than 21st and has crashed out three times.

“I mean, they’re hard to move forward, so you kind of get stuck,” Byron said of racing at superspeedways. “We saw three-wide (racing last year), and a lot of that has to do with saving fuel and how that all plays out. So it’s just tough to balance. Now I feel like everyone’s gotten so smart with this strategy that it’s just more of a track position thing than ever. Like you can’t really make a lot of mistakes and get back, so just trying to manage that.”

MORE: At-track photos from Daytona

Larson and Byron both advanced to the Championship 4 in 2023 as Larson eyed his second Cup title, and Byron made his first true bid. Neither were able to leave Phoenix Raceway with the trophy, but that didn’t diminish the successful seasons of either the No. 5 or No. 24 teams.

“We want to be better, and there’s definitely room to get better,” Larson said. “But the offseason was good for me anyway. It was relaxing, and you know, raced a little bit. But yeah, just got to spend time with the family and you get to get some more one-on-one time with them because once I start racing, I’m pretty much gone a lot of time.

“The last month and a half or so, I’ve been working with Cliff (Daniels, crew chief) and the guys closely, just studying and talking about things and how to be better and where we can get better.”

Larson’s No. 5 team did alter a bit through the offseason. Lead engineer Adam Wall is now a crew chief in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for Sammy Smith in the JR Motorsports No. 8 car.

“So we shuffled some things around with the engineering area and brought one new person, Brian Ross, in,” Larson said. “So other than that, our team is pretty much the same, and Brian has been a great addition so far. I really enjoy having him, and yeah, look forward to getting racing.”

Byron netted a career-high six wins last season in a true breakout year for the 26-year-old. The goal is to capitalize on that momentous campaign after falling short to Ryan Blaney in Phoenix last fall.

“I think we have our own goals as a team,” Byron said, “and things that we’ve kind of identified as weaknesses — or even the strengths that we did have and just trying to keep those, or maintain or get better. And so I feel like there’s still areas that … I felt like we could be a lot better and overall just be faster, you know, especially at the right times of year, but try to just have more speed.”

In recent years, Valvoline has increased its presence on both the Nos. 5 and 24 cars and recently added a new Restore and Protect line as well.

“It’s cool,” Larson said. “They’re always innovating and trying to come up with new product and they’re the first and only to remove up to 100% of deposits. So I think that’s something to be proud of.”

Posted on February 18, 2024February 18, 2024 by Staff Report

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR officials have postponed the Daytona 500 to Monday because of rain, meaning it will join the season-opening Xfinity Series race in a first-ever doubleheader at Daytona International Speedway to start the work week.

A combination of Saturday rainfall and Sunday’s threatening weather forecast prompted officials to push the 66th running of the Daytona 500 to Monday at 4 p.m. ET, to be telecast on FOX with radio coverage through MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. The “Great American Race” had been scheduled for a Sunday, 2:30 p.m. ET start.

The Xfinity Series’ United Rentals 300 — originally planned for a Saturday start at 5 p.m. ET — was rescheduled to Monday at 11 a.m. ET (FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Fans with Saturday grandstand tickets and admission to the Hard Rock Bet Fanzone may attend both the NASCAR Xfinity Series race and the Daytona 500.

FOX’s NASCAR RaceDay will remain scheduled for Sunday. Fans can tune in at 11 a.m. ET on FS1 and FOX at 1 p.m. ET.

Saturday’s on-track schedule was washed away, with final Daytona 500 practice canceled by steady precipitation at the 2.5-mile track. Weather also delayed Xfinity Series qualifying by two hours, and a single round of time trials was completed before more rain arrived. The season-opening race for the ARCA Menards Series headed off the weather with a move from Saturday afternoon to Friday night after the Craftsman Truck Series event.

Former Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano will start from the pole position after topping the chart in Wednesday night’s Cup Series qualifying session. He will share the front row with fellow Ford driver Michael McDowell, who won the “Great American Race” in 2021.

One row behind them will be a pair of Toyotas, with Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell securing those starting spots based on their victories in Thursday night’s 150-mile qualifying races, the Bluegreen Vacations Duels.

WATCH: ‘Walk with the Greats’ Daytona 500 heroes | Classic Daytona races

Posted on February 18, 2024February 19, 2024 by Zack Albert

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Even two race weekends into the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series campaign, it’s still been a bit jarring to see Ross Chastain wearing the Busch Light colors most closely associated with Kevin Harvick the last eight seasons. But there he’s been, both at the Clash in Los Angeles and in preparation for the Daytona 500, with a light-blue and white fire suit bearing the logo of his Trackhouse Racing team’s new sponsor.

More striking, from Chastain’s perspective, has been seeing life-sized mirror images of himself in his new duds, in cardboard-cutout form alongside supermarket and convenience store displays of his sponsor’s product.

“It’s wild,” Chastain says. “Honestly, the thoughts get more wild when people send me pictures and I see them online, I get tagged and stuff and we’re looking through that. It’s just, it’s wild to think that from my uncle in South Florida, to a farmer in Delaware, and now out west that they’re seeing the stuff go in the stores. It’s just, it’s indescribable. Really, it’s hard to put into words.”

Chastain will carry those new colors into his sixth appearance in the Daytona 500 (Monday, 4 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), aiming for his first victory in the “Great American Race.” The 31-year-old driver has three top 10s in the season-opening event, including a ninth-place result in last year’s running.

Lately, there’s been a lot of Chastain to go around, from his featured role in the “NASCAR: Full Speed” docu-series on Netflix to his newfound appearance in promotional beer displays. Turns out, it’s not the first time that his image has been reproduced in cardboard form. Chastain said that 12 years ago, he paid for 10 of them to give to existing and prospective sponsors as he aimed to break into NASCAR’s national series. In some, he held a helmet under his right arm. A watermelon — in a nod to his farming roots — was photoshopped in the helmet’s place.

“Back when I was just hustling, trying to kind of raise money, that was the name of the game,” Chastain said. “That’s what was going to get me on track.”

Now established as he starts his sixth Cup Series season, Chastain no longer has to grind and scrape for a ride — as the cardboard cutouts he no longer has to pay for will attest. He’s made it and can now allow his mind to think about what it might mean to win the Daytona 500 in his home state as the only Florida native in the field. There, he struggles to find words again.

“Why not us? I have to think that. Why can’t we win? There are no reasons why we can’t,” Chastain says. “From there, indescribable. … I don’t know what it would mean. If it happens, you’ll get to watch us experience it for the first time together.”

Posted on February 17, 2024February 17, 2024 by Staff Report

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – NASCAR officials have postponed Saturday’s season-opening Xfinity Series race to a Monday start at Daytona International Speedway because of rain.

A combination of Saturday rainfall and Sunday’s threatening weather forecast prompted officials to reschedule the Xfinity Series’ United Rentals 300 – originally planned for a Saturday start at 5 p.m. ET — to Monday at 11 a.m. ET. The race will be telecast on FS1, with radio broadcast coverage on MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Parts of Saturday’s on-track schedule were washed away, with final Cup Series practice canceled by lingering precipitation at the 2.5-mile track. Weather also delayed Xfinity Series qualifying by two hours, and a single round of time trials was completed before more significant rain arrived mid-afternoon. Officials had moved Saturday’s start time up to 4 p.m. ET and completed driver intros in an effort to beat the approaching showers before the skies opened.

Rookie Jesse Love won the pole position for the Xfinity Series’ 300-miler, placing his No. 2 Chevrolet in the first starting spot for his series debut. He’ll start alongside Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Hill on the front row when the race takes the green flag.

The race will be held a day after the Cup Series season gets underway with the 66th Daytona 500 (2:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Former winner Joey Logano is the polesitter after topping Wednesday night’s qualifying session in the Team Penske No. 22 Ford.

The season-opening race for the ARCA Menards Series headed off the weather with a move from Saturday afternoon to Friday night after the Craftsman Truck Series event.

Posted on February 17, 2024February 19, 2024 by Zack Albert

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Martin Truex Jr. still remembers his first visits to Daytona International Speedway, back when his budding career as a young driver in what’s now called the NASCAR Xfinity Series was starting to take shape. Some two decades later, he’s regarded highly among the sport’s elder statesmen.

Truex’s long-running quest for a victory in stock-car racing’s most prestigious race writes another chapter in Monday’s 66th Daytona 500 (4 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). With Kevin Harvick’s retirement after last year’s campaign, he enters the new NASCAR Cup Series season as the circuit’s oldest driver – just four-plus months older than fellow 43-year-old Denny Hamlin, a teammate of his at Joe Gibbs Racing.

Truex says he marvels at the pace of that progression, from an earlier era in the sport’s history to today.

“It’s very strange. And it’s crazy how fast it happened,” Truex said. “I cannot believe this is my 20th time racing in this race. It just feels like yesterday, I was just coming here for the first time. It’s really … it’s nuts how fast time goes by. And it’s also crazy to see just how much has changed since I first started — the names, the cars, the teams — everything is so different now than it was. Time flies, no doubt about it.”

Truex’s visits to the World Center of Racing these days include a reminder of how close he’s come in NASCAR’s season opener. Images of the speedway’s most iconic moments are displayed on the arcing walls of the Turn 1 infield tunnel, including the checkered-flag image of his narrow loss to Hamlin in the 2016 race – still the closest finish in Daytona 500 history with a .010-second margin of victory. “Not a great memory, but to be part of the closest finish in history here is cool,” said Truex, a magnanimous runner-up that day. “Just wish we were on the other side of it.”

Truex’s Daytona trips these days are a long reach from his DIY beginnings, when he gravitated more to the hands-on side as a driver for his family-owned team in the former Busch North Series. His arrival in NASCAR’s higher ranks was an eye-opener, with a move up to Dale Earnhardt Inc. and the Chance 2 Motorsports team making things more hands-off.

“When I first got to come down here, I still couldn’t believe I was getting the opportunity,” Truex says now. “Basically, up until ’03, I had never once expected or was really 100% working toward being a driver for a living. I was working, I was racing for fun, I was racing as something that’s just, that’s what I did. And I honestly was shocked when I got a call to come test a car for DEI, for Chance 2. Then when I got here, I was like, ‘Damn, I can’t believe I’m here.’ Like I go into the hauler to test for the first time, and my fire suit’s hanging up, and I’m like, ‘I didn’t have to take that to the dry cleaners.’ That’s the kind of things I thought when I first came here.

“And I just remember, I didn’t have to work on the car, I didn’t have to do anything but show up and drive it. It didn’t make any sense. So that’s how much has changed. It’s crazy. And now obviously, I come here now and it’s like, the only thing I want to come here and do is win. It’s the only thing that matters. I don’t have to do anything else, but come here and try to win. So it’s changed quite a lot.”

Years later, Truex has established a racing portfolio that has him firmly among NASCAR’s elite, with 34 Cup Series victories, two Xfinity championships and crown-jewel wins in the Southern 500 and Coca-Cola 600. His 18 full-time years of experience at NASCAR’s top level, and a fire suit patch that identifies him as a Cup Series champion, have afforded him a degree of stature in the garage.

How many more years he’ll keep at it has become a near-annual cycle of rinse-and-repeat questions – When will you decide? Has car owner Joe Gibbs set a timetable? Does the team’s performance affect your thought process? All those reps have made Truex an expert in the art of demurring and hedging. “I got more time last year than I did the year before,” said Truex, who made his return official early last August, “so that’s good.”

When he does make that call, he’ll be faced with another question he’s been asked before, about his legacy in the sport and how others will remember his impact. Truex says it’s a complicated answer since he’s still adding to his accomplishments, but it’s not one that he fixates on.

“I mean, the only thing I ever kind of worry about is just letting people know I tried to do things the right way,” Truex says. “I mean, I don’t know if that’s a big deal or if it’s not a big deal, but I always try to treat people with respect, the way I would want to get treated and do things the right way on the race track, and just be a good teammate, be a good part of a team and be someone that’s fun to be around. But aside from that, I don’t really know. I don’t know that it’s a big deal to me to worry about any of that stuff. I don’t know if it’s because I’m still here doing it, and I don’t really look back much.”

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Time for reflection will come later, potentially coinciding with when Truex becomes eligible for NASCAR Hall of Fame consideration. Every eligible driver ahead of him on NASCAR’s all-time win list – and several below — has been enshrined, and every Cup Series champion except the lesser-known 1950 title winner Bill Rexford has been voted in, making Truex a strong candidate at his current face value.

That’s another legacy question that Truex has entertained only when it’s come up in conversation.

“I’ve only thought about it when guys had mentioned it to me,” he says. “(Hall of Fame executive director) Winston Kelley, he’s always the first one every time I see him, he always brings it up, and it’s really special to me because I listened to him (on the radio with MRN) since I was a kid, so it’s really special to hear that. But I try not to get too caught up in it, and I’m still writing my history. So I’d like to add some more things to it to hopefully get in there the first try.”

First-ballot election, he joked, might make that retirement decision even more timing-dependent.

“I figure I dodged a big bullet with Harvick going already, so he’ll get in his first try, right? So I would imagine that I just have to make sure me and Denny don’t retire at the same time,” Truex said with a laugh. “It’s crazy to think about. It’s wild.”